Augustus wrote:I know all about Farrakhan and find him vile. Supporting him is extremely problematic. Antisemitism is a huge problem in this country. Malik Jackson should be dragged for amplifying him.

However, Trump also has a record of horribly bigoted rhetoric, and as TV pointed out, can actually make policy and has a much larger platform than Farrakhan. Trump has put children in cages. Trump has banned people from the country based upon religion. There have been dozens of Trump-inspired violent incidents across the country.

If white players, coaches, and owners can support Trump without the threat of being cut, fired, or forced to sell their teams, I don't think it's fair to say Malik Jackson should be cut.

Monkeyboy wrote:

Augustus wrote:I know all about Farrakhan and find him vile. Supporting him is extremely problematic. Antisemitism is a huge problem in this country. Malik Jackson should be dragged for amplifying him.

However, Trump also has a record of horribly bigoted rhetoric, and as TV pointed out, can actually make policy and has a much larger platform than Farrakhan. Trump has put children in cages. Trump has banned people from the country based upon religion. There have been dozens of Trump-inspired violent incidents across the country.

If white players, coaches, and owners can support Trump without the threat of being cut, fired, or forced to sell their teams, I don't think it's fair to say Malik Jackson should be cut.

My concern is that not saying something about it will allow the right to make it seem like Farrakhan is a major voice of the BLM movement. That will get their based riled up, particularly the religious right. I think we have to speak up against both Trump and Farrakhan, but we can't fire people for supporting either idiot.

TenuredVulture wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:

Augustus wrote:I know all about Farrakhan and find him vile. Supporting him is extremely problematic. Antisemitism is a huge problem in this country. Malik Jackson should be dragged for amplifying him.

However, Trump also has a record of horribly bigoted rhetoric, and as TV pointed out, can actually make policy and has a much larger platform than Farrakhan. Trump has put children in cages. Trump has banned people from the country based upon religion. There have been dozens of Trump-inspired violent incidents across the country.

If white players, coaches, and owners can support Trump without the threat of being cut, fired, or forced to sell their teams, I don't think it's fair to say Malik Jackson should be cut.

My concern is that not saying something about it will allow the right to make it seem like Farrakhan is a major voice of the BLM movement. That will get their based riled up, particularly the religious right. I think we have to speak up against both Trump and Farrakhan, but we can't fire people for supporting either idiot.

Most of Farrakhan's ideas align more with the Republican Party than the Democratic Party.

Augustus wrote:I get what you're saying and just want to make it clear that I'm not minimizing how terrible and dangerous Farrakhan is. I'm not Jewish, nor am I a member of any of the multitude of groups that Trump has perpetuated bigotry against, so I don't want to act as an arbiter of who is worse or more racist or whatever.

You're absolutely right that all forms of bigotry should be called out. But unfortunately that's not the world we live in. Millions and millions of white people are getting a pass for supporting racism, so when someone like Jackson is called out I'm sensitive to it. This is a product of white supremacy and the normalization of white bigotry. Black people are being held to a different and higher standard here, just like they are in every arena and every walk of life.

Jackson needs to be called out and admonished, and he needs to educate himself. But if he loses his job while owners continue to cut checks to Trump's campaign, that's white supremacy in action.

Monkeyboy wrote:My concern is that not saying something about it will allow the right to make it seem like Farrakhan is a major voice of the BLM movement. That will get their based riled up, particularly the religious right. I think we have to speak up against both Trump and Farrakhan, but we can't fire people for supporting either idiot.

Malcolm Jenkins wrote:We can honor the Jewish heritage and trauma while staying focused on what matters. Jewish people aren’t our problem, and we aren’t their problem. Let’s not lose focus on what the problem truly is, and that’s that black lives still don’t matter in this country.
Push this energy toward arresting and convicting the killers of Breonna Taylor and burning systemic racism to the ground

Gimpy wrote:I don’t think that’s supposed to read as the problems facing those communities aren’t the problems of the other communities. I think he means that Jewish people and black people are not enemies (i.e. the other community is not the problem each community is facing).

Not worded well though (and I didn’t watch the video yet so I may be wrong with the way I’m reading it).

While once again noting that Jenkins plainly states that Jackson's actions are wrong, he uses language that attempts to move the conversation off of a current, relevant story and minimize its importance. "Staying focused on what matters" suggests fighting anti-semitism doesn't matter, even if Jenkins doesn't actually believe that.

Given the effort undertaken to establish Black Lives Matter in the mainstream to begin with — the movement began over half of a decade ago and only achieved broader support in the wake of George Floyd's death — concern over losing traction or attention is understandable. There are plenty of bad-faith actors who are attempting to use Jackson's actions as a means to disparage Black Americans, the motives of Black Lives Matter, and the fight for racial justice. That's a bit of context, to say nothing of the hundreds of years of Black history in America that preceded this moment, that must be considered.

But treating anti-semitism as "a distraction" in support of another just cause is exactly what supporters of Black Lives Matter are asking people not to do. Addressing antisemitism and condemning Hitler, which is pertinent at this moment because of Jackson's mistakes, is not an either/or proposition with supporting the fight for racial justice, nor is it an invented distraction meant to intentionally divert focus. It's a problem that has impacted another marginalized community for thousands of years.